Daily Archives: December 22, 2015

In this episode of teleSUR’s Days of Revolt, Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader trace the advancement of corporate control in the US political system.

Published on Nov 12, 2015

Real News @ http://RevolutionNews.US — Chris Hedges speaks with former presidential candidate Ralph Nader. Together they analyze the historic role of third parties in the US, and trace how such political alternatives have been shut out by a corporatized, dictatorial two-party system. Nader and Hedges also discuss Bernie Sanders’ campaign, and his capitulation to the Democratic establishment.

Days of Revolt: The Death of Electoral Politics
In this episode of teleSUR’s Days of Revolt, Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader analyze Bernie Sanders’ campaign and the role of the two-party system in shutting out third parties.

The late folk artist Pete Seeger was a musical and political icon who helped create the modern American folk music movement. Now there’s some new pages to add to his songbook—the government has released nearly 1,800 pages that reveal the FBI spied on him for nearly 30 years. The surveillance began when Seeger protested the targeting of Japanese Americans during World War II. It continued until the early 1970s as he wrote some of the most famous anti-war songs of the 20th century. We are joined by Pete Seeger’s biographer, David King Dunaway.

“The Paris talks were absolutely a success in that the agreement that was achieved is one that meets all of the requirements of what would be a meaningful foundation for long-term action,” said Robert Stavins, head of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements.

As negotiators make their way back to their home countries from the Paris climate talks, the world is taking stock of the agreement that many analysts describe as a landmark shift in global climate cooperation but some criticize as lacking mandatory targets to keep temperatures to a rise of less than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

GAZETTE: From your perspective, were the Paris talks a success or failure?

STAVINS: The Paris talks were absolutely a success in that the agreement that was achieved is one that meets all of the requirements of what would be a meaningful foundation for long-term action. But it’s only a foundation, so whether the agreement itself is ultimately successful, that’s something that can be judged only 10, 20, or even 30 years from now.

Taken together, the lessons from thirty years of experience suggest that cap-and-trade merits serious consideration when regions, nations, or sub-national jurisdictions seek to develop policies to reduce GHG emissions. And, indeed, this has happened.

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On Friday, the Democratic National Committee suspended the Bernie Sanders campaign’s access to a critical database after finding his staffers improperly viewed front-runner Hillary Clinton’s proprietary information when a computer glitch made it briefly available. The DNC backed down after Sanders filed suit, but the Sanders campaign has accused party leadership of trying to thwart the Vermont senator’s bid. The DNC has also been accused of trying to help Clinton by limiting the number of debates and scheduling them on low-viewership periods like Saturday nights. Bill Curry, political columnist at Salon.com and former White House counselor to President Clinton, argues that the DNC is deliberately blocking debate and that chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz should resign as a result. “This is supposed to be a political party. In a healthy society, there would be a democratic process in the Democratic Party, by which elected people would be overseeing these issues by making sure there wasn’t just nepotism and insider dealing,” Curry says. “That the political party itself — which is supposed to be the progressive party — has become mortgaged to a small group of Washington insiders, who raise money from large corporate PACs, [and] has become just a dead carcass of what it once was, is the most important piece of information that this contretemps over the data files has emphasized. It’s time for progressives in this country to stand up and demand a genuinely democratic process.”

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Welcome to Transition Studies. To prosper for very much longer on the changing Earth humankind will need to move beyond its current fossil-fueled civilization toward one that is sustained on recycled materials and renewable energy. This is not a trivial shift. It will require a major transition in all aspects of our lives.
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